Over 20 years of writing about my club in Barnet matchday programmes, which sold to about 500 souls on a good day, now with this Blog Site everyone can read my ramblings, memories, interviews, experiences, features, guides to away grounds and pure love of everything Barnet Football Club. Enjoy and digest and tell your friends.
Reckless - Potters Bar March 2014.
Oh Yes, thank you to"Al" without whom.......that is all

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RICKY GEORGE

Next
in the spotlight is a gentleman without whom, as is about to be
explained, our club arguably wouldn't exist in the form that we know
it today.

More senior
football fans will never need reminding that arguably
the most famous FA Cup giant killing of all time occurred at Edgar
Street when then Southern League Hereford United eliminated Newcastle
United in the 3rd round by 2 goals to 1 in 1972. Ronnie Radford’s
wonder goal from about a mile out won prize after prize and accolade
after accolade but so many people forget that the winning goal in
that game was scored by Ricky George. Ricky of course had made his
mark with Barnet Football Club playing in that superb team of the
late 1960’s.

Barnet bred
Ricky was born in 1946 and attended East Barnet Grammar school. He
has fond memories of watching Barnet from the terraces as a boy with
his elder brother Mike, who also went on to represent Barnet in the
Athenian and Southern League. “It was a much more community minded
club then, nearly all the side that played at Wembley in the Amateur
Cup Final were from Barnet itself”.

Ricky joins BFC

Ricky
started his footballing career as an apprentice with Tottenham
Hotspur in 1961 at a time when Spurs were at the height of their
powers having won the League and FA Cup double. He signed
professional terms at White Hart Lane and then had spells at Watford,
Bournemouth and Oxford Utd before joining Hastings Utd in the
Southern League where he first teamed up with another Bees legend
Bill Meadows. They became firm friends notwithstanding the fact that
they travelled to games together from their homes in North London.
When Hastings ran into financial troubles in 1968 the whole squad
were given free transfers. Barnet manager Dexter Adams was never one
to miss out on quality and Ricky soon joined Southern League Premier
Barnet describing them as the best team he have ever played in. The
forward line of Colin Powell, Les Eason, Meadows and George was to
say the least formidable, and they all scored goals for fun. “Dexter
was a very canny gentleman. Still is, and he knew exactly how we all
ticked and would ring up on a Friday night about 9 and say, ‘Now
this fellow tomorrow at right back, he's slow, do him on the outside,
with your pace, knock it past him get to the by-line and get the
cross in’. When he hung up I would look towards Pat my wife and say
‘I feel great’ but she would say ‘Don’t you realise he is
just making sure you are staying in tonight!’”

As a
reckless young boy I had pictures of all the Barnet players in a
scrapbook, signed of course, and I recall my mum pointing to the
picture of Ricky and saying “He is dishy and looks just like Steve
McQueen?”

Ricky George 1968

Ricky’s
first goal in an amber shirt was against Arsenal in the London
Challenge Cup in September 1968. Barnet ran out 4-1 winners against a
side that contained numerous First Division regulars and household
names. Another special occasion was in March 1970 when all of the
aforementioned players scored all the goals in an 8-1 mauling of
Mosseley in an FA trophy tie at Underhill. Ricky scored two, laying
on four others. However his greatest performance was reserved for the
visit of Division 4 club Newport County to the Hill in an FA Cup 1st
round tie in November 1970. Ricky scored a hatrick in the 6-1 win,
the result still in the record books for a non league team victory
over a football league side, and was the star man grabbing headlines
in the national press.

Ricky has
said “Everyone who played for Barnet around that time loved the
place, the camaraderie was the best at any club I have experienced.
However I got an injury in the New Year of 1971 at home to Poole and
Manager Tommy Coleman told me that another club had offered a good
fee and he was prepared to let me go. I was disappointed at the time
I will be honest”

In February
1971 after three eventful years and nearly 150 appearances Ricky
joined Hereford United then managed by Welsh legend John Charles. His
old pal Bill Meadows had signed a deal at Hereford in the previous
closed season. Ricky continues with a grin “It was said that the
only reason that I followed Bill to Edgar Street was because he
simply wanted some company on the 3 hour journey twice a week from
North London, well that’s not true otherwise he wouldn’t have
collared me for half the petrol money!”

In the FA
Cup 3rd
round of 1971/2 Hereford were drawn against then First Division
Newcastle United. In the astonishing 2-1 victory Ricky won possession
setting up Radford for a famous equalising goal. The tie went into
extra time and Ricky struck the incredible winner. The goal sparked
the mass pitch invasion in which every young boy who leaped around in
the thick mud seemed to be wearing a Parka coat! Along with Radford,
Ricky has become part of FA Cup folklore and his achievement is
always referred to every year the FA Cup comes around. Football TV
memories at their best.

Ricky had
returned to Underhill as a player by Christmas 1972 when Hereford
were elected into the Football League. “It was an old boys reunion,
Les Eason, Ben Embery, Paddy, Gordon Ferry, were all still there
under the great Gerry Ward’s management” said Ricky. “Later
when Brian Kelly was manager he loaned me out to Wimbledon and I
played for them against Barnet, the only time I ever played against
“my club” at Underhill, it was very strange. I remember walking
down the tunnel turning towards the away dressing room after the game
and Stevie Toms shouted ‘get in here George you don’t bloody
belong in there!’ It was then, sitting with all my old mates that
Stevie told me about another dear friend Bees goalkeeper Jack
McClelland’s serious illness. That was tragic, Jack really loved
the place, a lovely man and a great goalkeeper”.

Ricky’s
second spell at Underhill amounted to a further two and half years
until the spring of 1975 when he joined Cambridge City and then
Borehamwood before retiring from playing in 1976.

Ricky
started and ran a successful sportswear business travelling the world
until 1992 when along with five others he bought a share in a
racehorse called Earth Summit. In April 1998 it famously won the
Grand National at odds of 7/1.

In 1992 he
was made President of Barnet Youth FC and unsuccessfully tried to
link with Barnet and Chairman Stan Flashman. “Stan didn’t want to
know unfortunately and I said ‘it's not going to cost you any money
Stan’, we were self sufficient. It could have been an unofficial
academy”.

In 1994 he
again returned to Underhill this time in the guise of Chairman.

“Stan and
Barry Fry had left and Edwin Stein was manager with a new board of
Directors. Eddie then moved on and I appointed Gary Phillips as the
new manager. I fell out with a few people at the club because it was
an awful time, but that is all forgotten now. There was a real danger
at one point that we'd do an Aldershot and go back five leagues to
Diadora 3, but that fortunately that never happened”.

Alongside
Phillips he performed miracles piecing together a squad to represent
the club in Division 2 in the wake of the infamous promotion winning
season and subsequent administration turmoil when virtually the whole
Barnet playing staff were granted free transfers by the Football
Association. For that contribution to our club alone we should all be
eternally thankful.

Ricky
published his autobiography One
Goal One Horse in 2001. If you
haven’t read the book here is the hard sell. It is of course
lavishly decorated with fond memories of all things Barnet, but it is
also a fascinating insight to a world so few are privileged to
experience. “It represents
the untold thousands of professional footballers who never got a
chance to tell their story”
read one review. It is extremely funny in places and more senior Bees
fans will recognise characters that to the average reader will sound
made up, but I assure you they are not.

Ricky now
writes a non-league football column for the Daily Telegraph and is a
regular summariser on BBC radio. He even crops up on Hawksby and
Jacobs on Talksport radio from time to time and very entertaining he
is too.

His roots
remain securely in Barnet and he can often be found enjoying a round
of golf at Old Fold Manor in Hadley Highstone. Ricky is a Barnet boy
– always will be.